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Tag Archive co-sleeping

Sunmi Cha is a Canadian originally from Korea. I was privileged enough to be invited into her home and hear her story.

You said you are one of four siblings at home. Are you the eldest?

I am the eldest.

What is the age gap between you and your brothers and sisters?

Two years apart. The youngest and I are almost 6 years, me and the second one are almost 18 months apart.

You said you used to carry your younger brother?

Yes, I used to carry him everywhere, I remember playing with him. I would babysit my brother, and then if he was getting fussy, or if I need to walk around, I would just throw him on my back and use podaegi. He was a very big boy, he is now over 6 feet. He was a big, heavy baby and I was a child. Still I was able to walk around town, I would go see my mom and dad when we were working in our garden. I would hold him on my back. It was so natural too.

How long is it for children to be worn in the podaegi?

I asked my mom. Since when were you wearing me and my siblings in the podaegi?

âYou need to be controlling your neck.â
âSo what did you do when you werenât able to put us on your back?â
âI carried you on my hip, I stuck your head in my armpit and like this, and then I was doing everything. I was cooking, there was no room to take a break.â

They start backcarrying when there is some head control at around three months, they would cradle the baby in one arm and stick the head in the armpit.

I still cannot picture that. Stick the head in the armpit, securely hold their hip right to yourÂ torso. She was cooking, she was cleaning, she was going everywhere! My mom is five feet, sheâs tiny. I cannot even picture her carrying me.

But she still had one hand free. They didnât have something for when the babies are young?

She tried to do things when the baby was sleeping. But if the baby needed to be carried, that was the only way she could do it for the first three months. I am glad I have all these options, but even having all these carriers, three months felt like forever.

How old were the babies carried in the podaegi?

There was no age limit. I would put a 5 or 6 year old on my back. One time, my niece and nephew came over, my niece was 5. I used to live by the Pretoria Bridge, we decided to go on the canal and walk to Parliament. It was a long walk for the little one, of course she got tired. We didnât bring a stroller. We had a wagon, but the younger one, the three year old was sleeping in it, so she didnât have room to get onto the wagon. So someone had to carry her. I had a long scarf that I was wearing. I put her on my back and I just tied it. I was able to carry her all the way back home. I wish I had a podaegi, it would be so much easier

I loved how you just grabbed the scarf.

When my sister sent the podaegi to me, I had this imagination in my head, even when heâs older, when we go somewhere, I will still be able to use this. Itâs light, just a fabric. When you donât have access to a stroller, when you are out and about, when you forgot, when the baby is tired, you can just have him sleep on your back. Any fabric will work.

How was it when you were growing up?

We all slept all together until we were teenagers.

We slept on the floor, we had a bed in one room. My mom prepared a room for one of us, I guess it was more for me because I was the oldest one, they thought that I would want to sleep on my own. Once I became a certain age, at the time we had three rooms and my mom and dad slept with the youngest one and I slept with two other sisters we slept with my grandma in one room. So one room was empty with a bed. And the other two rooms, we all slept on the floor, we just used a thick blanket and thatâs how we slept. I think I wanted to sleep on my own once I became 8 or 9. Because I would watch TV and I would see other kids having their own rooms. So my mom put a bed in the room and made it pleasant. Some days I would try to sleep in the room, then I would wake up, afraid, I donât want to be in the room by myself, it was dark, I would just come over to my grandmaâs room and just slip in with my sisters again. My experience is a little different because I started living by myself since I was really young. I was a good student and my mom wanted me to study at a better school. So they sent me to Seoul. We were living 40 minutes away from Seoul but at the time it was a long distance back then. So I was living by myself since I was 12 years old, that room then my sister took over. That room became her trial room. After that we built a bigger house with more rooms when we were all older, teenagers.

We had three rooms, one room was empty. No one was using it! We all just loved to be snuggled together, play at night time all together, and then we would just all fall asleep. We had no sleep routine really, my mother just tell us to go to sleep. You would go in the room and fall asleep when you needed to fall asleep. Thatâs how it was.

In Korea now, how long do the children stay in with the parents before they go on their own?

It really varies now. Young parents my age, they do more Western-style. They were getting the exact same advice that I was reading from English books. Thatâs what they are teaching there, I was so surprised to see that. When baby first comes, the first thing that you look for is how the baby sleeps. Thatâs what I was searching on YouTube, Google and all the Korean community websites, but thatâs what Korean experts and Korean professors were teaching.

Now people started using a crib. About 90% of people sleep on a bed now, they donât sleep on the floor anymore.

Is the influence from American TV shows, or is it from within Korea? To be modern, this is what you should do?

The whole thing is more modernized, like housing structures, and cultures. And I think TV shows influence that too. Things are changing. There are people there who value the traditional way of living, but actually you need money to be able to maintain a traditional way of living there.

You need more money to maintain a traditional way of living there?

Because traditional looking houses are more expensive, they are usually located in wealthy areas, and the traditional stuff would cost more because it is not mass-produced, it is made by hand. So if you want to buy that mat, itâs called a yo1, itâs 100% cotton, just filled with cotton, a thick blanket and you can sleep on. It can be expensive. A young couple starting out wouldnât pursue this kind of lifestyle because it is more expensive.

Thereâs a huge barrier there because it is not mass produced.

Thatâs the thing. If itâs not mass produced the price factors in and that determines the popularity. If things are more expensive people would not get drawn to it.

Sunmi and I originally met October 15, 2016, and we spoke for about four hours. This article is a condensed and edited version of our interview. Her story, like many, was so interesting it became a three part series, the next article is called Babywearing Redux where she talks about revisiting babywearing. Learn about how she came to Canada by also reading A journey to Canadian.

Sunmi Cha is a full trained and license naturopathic doctor in Ottawa. Visit her website here.